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HALF MOON SERffiS 
■PAFEIIS ON HISTORIC J^ 

NEW YORKe^ ^ J' ^ j> 



EDITED BY 

MAUD WILDER^ GOODWIN 
ALICE CARRINGTON.^OYCE 
RUTH PUTNAM 




XTbe lEarls Distovs of 
Mall Street 

1653=«1789 

®0waI^ (5arn0on lDinar&, a.flD. 



ON SALE AT G. P. PUTNAM'S 
SONS AND AT BRENTANO'S 
WHERE SUBSCRIPTIONS ^ 
^ ^ WILL BE RECEIVED 

ISSUED MONTHLY 



pvicc 3f(ve Cents ^, 
^ittg Cents a l^cac - 



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No more than eight pupils constitute any class 

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^ tor Otrls 

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Half Moon Series 

Published in the Interest of the New York 
City History Club. 



Volume I. Number IV. 



99 



E EARLY HISTORY OF WALL STREET. 
I 653-1 789. 

By OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD, A.M. 

" -HE small town of New Amsterdam, whose 
quaint little Dutch houses nestled so 
: 'ngly about the high-walled fort at the 
"eme southerly end of the island of Man- 
an, was neither contented, nor happy, nor 
sperous, in the year 1644. *'Our fields 
lie fallow and waste," said a communication 
from the eight leading burghers to their home 
government in Holland, ''our dwellings and 
other buildings are burnt. We are burdened 
with heavy families; have no means to pro- 
vide necessaries any longer for our wives and 
children. . . . We have left our fatherland 
and had not the Lord our God been our com- 
fort, must have perished in our wretched- 
ness." ^ To so earnest an appeal for aid even 



Bmsters 
bam 

t644 



Copyright, 1897, by Maud Wilder Goodwin. 



lOO 



XTbe Barl^ Ibistors ot XRIlall Street 



peter 

Stu^vesa 

ant 

te47 



the slow-moving States-General could not 
turn deaf ears. Recognizing that the situa- 
tion called for a stronger hand than any which 
had thus far held the reins of government over 
the distant and struggling colony, they sent, 
in 1647, Peter Stuyvesant to take command 
of it. 

If the early history of this able man is not 
altogether as clearly known to us as could be 
wished, it is at least certain that he had won 
the reputation, which led to his being consid- 
ered worthy of so trying a post, in the Dutch 
West Indies, where he had lost his right leg 
in battle. Whether he had been maimed 
while fighting creditably was even doubted 
by some of his contemporaries. But chosen 
he was, with the result that he proved him- 
self by no means unfit for the position, and 
even if he had other faults besides arbitrari- 
ness, his motives were excellent, the colony 
improved steadily under his guidance, and 
much was accomplished that was good and 
lasting. 

Arriving in New Amsterdam on the 27th of 
May, 1647, Stuyvesant began his administra- 
tion — the first of the many reform govern- 
ments the island of Manhattan has seen — by a 
number of vigorous ordinances and regula- 
tions. All nuisances were ordered removed 
from the streets, the proprietors of vacant Ic^ 
were given nine months in which to impro 



Ube Barl^ Ibistor^ ot Mall Street 



lO 



them, under penalty of forfeiture, and non- 
observance of the Sabbath, as well as drunk- 
enness and street disorder, was forbidden. 
The walls of the fort were repaired, the little 
church within it completed, embankments 
built along the rivers, and a revenue tax put 
on wine and beer. Not content with caring 
for the moral and religious behaviour of the 
burghers, Stuyvesant gave constant attention 
to the foreign affairs of his little domain. He 
at once strictly forbade the selling of liquor to 
the Indians, who often wandered in from the 
upper part of the island; he repaired the build- 
ings burned in the wars with them and, by 
resettling the outlying bouweries, or farms, 
encouraged trade with these native neighbors. 
Five years after Stuyvesant's arrival, in 1652, 
war broke out between England and Holland, 
and the news created consternation in New 
Amsterdam which was exposed to attacks 
from the English settlers in New England and 
Virginia. Knowing how impossible it would 
be for his weak colony to resist these more 
pov/erful settlements, Stuyvesant at once sent 
messages to them assuring them of his unal- 
tered peaceable disposition. But at the same 
time he began to make all the preparations 
for defence that lay in his power. On the 13th 
of March, 1653, a general meeting of the 
Director-General and Council of New Nether- 
lands was held, with the Burgomasters and 



StU?VC0s 

ant's 

IRcforms 

1547 



XTbe Barl^ fbistori? ot Mall Street 



ff>repar= 

ations for 

Defence 

1653 



Schepens* of the town attending, at which it 
was decreed that all the burghers of the city 
should keep watch by night at designated 
places, and the fort of New Amsterdam should 
be repaired and made sufficiently strong to 
stand a hostile attack. " Thirdly," the record 
says, ** taking into consideration that the 
Fort of New Amsterdam could not contain 
all the inhabitants, and to protect the houses 
and habitations of this city, it is deemed essen- 
tially necessary to enclose the greater part of 
the city with upright palisades and a small 
breastwork, so that, in case of necessity all 
the inhabitants may retire therein and, as fiir 
as practicable, defend themselves and their 
property against attack." ' 

This action, which determined that New 
York should be a walled city, and have a na/l 
street, was confirmed two days later when 
Peter Wolfersen Van Couwenhoven and Wil- 
helmus Beeckman were chosen as commis- 
sioners and authorized, with De la Montague, 
Stuyvesant's representative, to offer proposals, 
invite bids, make the contract for, and super- 
vise the construction of the works. At the 
same time it was determined that the treasury 
should be supplied with from four to five 
thousand guilders to defray the cost, the 
money to be raised by a tax "levied on 
those interested in New Netherlands accord- 



* The magistrates of the city. 



Ubc Barl^ Ibtstor^ ot Mall Street 



103 



ing to the value of their estates," and the 
property of the burghers was divided into 
four classes for the purposes of taxation. 
Work on the wall was at once begun, the 
contract price for this part of the defences 
being three thousand one hundred and sixty- 
six guilders, and it was entirely completed on 
the first day of May, 1653.' 

According to the conditions of the contract, 
the wall was solidly constructed. Round 
palisades twelve feet in length, eighteen 
inches in girth and sharpened at the top 
were placed in a line, interrupted at inter- 
vals of a rod by posts twenty-one inches in 
circumference, to which split rails were nailed 
two feet below the top of the palisades. A 
sloping breastwork three feet wide at the top 
and four at the bottom and four feet in height 
was then thrown up inside the palisades and 
against them, the dirt for which was to be 
thrown up from a ditch two feet deep and 
three and one-half broad located two and one- 
half feet within the breastwork. The length 
of the wall was about 180 rods and it ran 
along the East River for a short distance before 
extending straight across the island to the 
North River, skirting, as it passed, the end of 
De Heere Gracht, an inlet of the sea where 
Broad Street now is. The North Riverside of 
New Amsterdam was left defenceless because 
of a pretty steep bluff along it, long since 



Ubc 

IClall 

Completed) 

flDa«, 1653 



I04 



XLbc Barl^ Ibtstor^ ot Mall Street 



S)edcrips 
tion of 
TIQlall 
1653 



levelled, while the East River received the 
slight protection afforded by the Schoeynge, a 
barrier of planks driven into the mud like the 
modern system of piling. It must be noticed, 
too, that in those days the Island of Manhat- 
tan did not have the breadth many years of 
filling in of mud flats have since given it, for 
the ground covered now by Water, South, 
and Front Streets was then a part of the bay 
and river. In its location the wall was 
about on the line of a primitive fence built by 
Stuyvesanfs predecessor, Governor Kieft, to 
keep the cattle from wandering out of their 
joint pasture lands and falling a prey to the 
wild animals that roved over the upper part 
of the island. 

Three years later there were two substantial 
gates built in the wall; one, known as " T' 
Water PoorV^ or Water Gate, stood at the 
junction of the present Pearl and Wall Streets, 
being designed by a Captain Conwick, an 
educated officer in Stuyvesanfs service.* The 
other gate, known as the Land Gate, was at 
the corner of Broadway and Wall Streets and 
was the means of ingress and egress of the 
dwellers on the bouweries near the present 
City Hall Park, then known as De Vlache, or 
Flat, and used as the common pasture land. 
It is interesting to note in these days of cur- 
rency discussion that the contractor, Tomas 
Bacxter, was paid in "seawant" money made 



Xlbe Barlp "ffDistor^ ot limall Street 



105 



from shells, which was for many years practi- 
cally the sole medium of exchange in New 
Amsterdam. 

As the days went by and nothing was 
heard of any hostile movement of the English, 
the enthusiasm of the burghers waned rapidly 
under the fatigue and trials of military life. 
When, on the 28th of July, Stuyvesant re- 
minded the Burgomasters and Schepens of 
their promise to help the company finish its 
fortress, they declined on the ground "that 
the citizens at this time are so exhausted and 
worn out by their former general work."' 
Two weeks later the city authorities were 
more compliant, for when the governor com- 
plained that the hogs were doing great dam- 
age to the newly erected works, the court 
messenger was sent to notify the burghers 
with all the haste possible for so dignified an 
official, that the hogs must be kept shut up, 
until the works could be properly protected 
from them by fencing. Even this action did 
not avail much towards the preservation of the 
works, for they deteriorated so, that, on the 
13th of March following, Stuyvesant appealed 
to and obtained aid from the outlying villages 
of Breukelen, Midwout (Flatbush), and Amers- 
foort (Flatlands), which supplied palisades for 
the wall and the East River water front to re- 
place those destroyed by the severity of the 
winter/ 



"Cbc 
JGurgbcrs 
asSolMcrs 

1653 



io6 



XLbc iBarlp Ibistor^ ot Mall Street 



"Mews 
from 

36o0ton 
1654 



In the following June the citizens again ex- 
erted themselves on receiving the news of the 
arrival in Boston of several vessels with troops 
and war supplies and of the raising of soldiers 
in Plymouth and New Haven. They prosecut- 
ed the work with great zeal, until, on July i6, 
1654, the welcome news of a treaty of peace 
between England and Holland reached them 
and had a magic effect in stopping all work. 

To prepare for war in time of peace was 
not a maxim of those quiet-loving burghers, 
and so they neglected their defences until the 
danger was at hand. Thus, in 1655, the short 
war with the Swedish settlements on the 
Delaware or South River and the Indian attacks 
on Hoboken, Pavonia, and Staten Island led 
first to a tinkering at the wall and then to a 
decided strengthening of the palisades, by 
nailing boards to the height of at least ten 
or twelve feet above the pointed tops of the 
palisades, so as to prevent the " over/oopeti " 
(jumping over) of the savages.' Despite all 
these dangers and others threatened before 
the city finally outgrew its protection, the 
wall was never called upon to show its 
strength and never became the scene of strife 
or bloodshed. 

The matter of paying for the wall and the 
other fortifications, as well as for the constant 
repairs to them, soon became a burning ques- 
tion in the little communitv and led to a seri- 



TLbc Barl^^ Ibistor^ ot Mall Street 



107 



ous breach between the West India Company 
and the city authorities. Stuyvesant wished 
the city to bear the original cost of the wall 
and of the first repairs to the fort, but the 
burgomasters and schepens held that it was 
the company's duty to defend the city. Being 
upheld by the burghers, they said that if the 
director-general would abandon his excise on 
wine and beer and transfer the money received 
to the city, they would find the means needed. 
Stuyvesant held out for some time but finally 
yielded, and turned over to the city this ob- 
noxious tax, thus giving it the first revenue it 
ever received. The money for the fortifica- 
tions was then promptly raised by the aid of 
"divers honorable merchants." 

When, in 165^, the plank curtain was built 
on to the wall and the fort again strengthened, 
a joint meeting of the governor and his council 
and the burgomasters and schepens called for 
voluntary subscriptions to defray this new ex- 
pense and decreed, October 11, 1655, that in 
case of opposition or refusal by ''disaffected 
or evil-minded " such should be assessed ac- 
cording to their state and condition, a reason- 
able contribution exacted from them and 
execution levied at once. The result was 
the sum of six thousand three hundred and 
five guilders, mostly made up of voluntary 
subscriptions largely in excess of what would 
have been exacted of the givers. * 



ant 

(Quarrels 

witb tbc 

Scbcpens 

1653 



io8 



Ube iBavl^ IFDistorp ot Mall Street 



Stu^vess 

ant again 

Bsf?s tor 

Ibelp 

1656 



A year later Stuyvesant again appealed to 
the burghers for money, complaining that as 
far as the fortifications were concerned, ** what 
has already been done is wholly in ruins." 
After some deliberation the city authorities 
replied that, in view of the 'Mow and sober 
condition and circumstances of the Inhabitants 
of this City " whereby they were so " reduced 
that many scarcely see where they are to get 
the means, and others have in consequence 
gone away," the city must refuse to raise 
money in any way except by creating and 
farming, if their lordships of the council saw 
fit to grant them permission, some imposts 
least burdensome to the city.® In 1658, despite 
Stuyvesant's opposition, the imposts were 
placed upon taverns, land-transfers and 
slaughtered cattle, but they neither properly 
filled the city treasury, nor settled the vexed 
question of payments for the fortifications, for 
as late as 1692 the city declined to pay for new 
repairs on the ground that this duty in no way 
belonged to it.'" 

When, in 1664, Stuyvesant's worst fears 
were realized and the dreaded English actually 
obtained possession of New Amsterdam, the 
inhabitants of the open space adjoining the 
wall then known as "" De Singel ofte Stadt 
Waal " (the circuit or city wall) were few in 
number and dwelt in very humble structures. 
Jacob Jansen Moesman was the most dis- 



XTbe ]Earl^ Iblstory ot Mall Street 



09 



tinguished one, by virtue of the fact that he 
kept a general store in the best building 
along the wall. His neighbors were Dirck 
de Wolspinner (woolspinner) ; Gridtje, the 
chimneysweep; Jan Jansen Van Langendyck, 
a tapster ; Jan Teunizen, a miller ; Abram 
Kerner, Barent Eghberzen, Jan Videt, Pieter 
Jansen, and Dirck Van Clyf, all of whose 
buildings were one hundred feet within the 
wall and facing it.'' Originally a common 
pasture, Stuyvesant had granted to Domine 
Drissius, the officiating clergyman of the 
Dutch Church, the land which now lies be- 
tween New and William Streets, south of 
Wall Street, and his property bounded upon 
the farm of Jan Jansen Damen which ran 
parallel with, and a few feet north of, the 
present line of the street between Broadway 
and William Streets. South of the street and 
west of New Street, the original grantee of the 
land was Cornells Groesens, one of the early 
settlers, while Jacob Hendrick Vorravanger 
had a grant near what was afterwards the 
Water Gate.'' We also find in the old records 
the complaint of Jan Vinje, asking for com- 
pensation for the damage his property sus- 
tained, and for that part of it taken away 
because of the construction of the wall.'' 

In 1673, the good burghers of New Amster- 
dam were released from British domination by 
the recapture of the city by two Dutch mari- 



©irector^ 
of XQlall 
Street 



T lO 



XTbe JBavl^ Ibistor^ ot Mall Street 



Hntbon? 

Colvc 

"Cakes 

S>06Scssion 

1673 



ners, Cornells Everts and Jacob Blnckes. Cap- 
tain Anthony Colve landed with six hundred 
men, and met with no resistance. After the 
ships had fired a few broadsides, they at once 
took possession of the city and reorganized 
the government, Colve remaining as military 
head and chief officer of the administration. 
He Immediately set about repairing the fortifi- 
cations, tore down several buildings erected 
north of the wall, in which an enemy might 
find shelter, stationed sentinels along the wall, 
and ordered that the gates should be closed 
from sunset until sunrise. Anyone leaving or 
entering the city except by means of the gates 
was to be punished with death — a penalty 
never inflicted.'* Despite all his energetic ef- 
forts Colve was forced to see New Netherland 
again pass into the hands of the English the 
very next year, by virtue of the joint restora- 
tion of conquests agreed upon in the Treaty 
of Westminster between England and Hol- 
land. 

As the English soldiers again guarded the 
gates or leisurely patrolled the wall, they had 
time to observe that the street had improved 
somewhat during their absence, as it then con- 
sisted of an irregular line of some seventeen 
houses of a better appearance. There was 
one rated as first-class, being valued at about 
$2000, one of the second-class, seven of the 
third, and seven or eis^ht of the fourth. But 



TTbe JBnvl'Q Ifoistor^ ot Mall Street 



III 



they were often separated by vacant lots, and 
one of these was " Patorson's cornor by y*' 
wall 28 foot front to y" wall." Another was 
" the other cornor old house and ground front 
to wall 22 foot to y*" street 26," and a third 
that of " Mother Drissius 150 foot front along 
y*" wall fitt for to build." Jan Jansen Van Lan- 
gendyck now appears on the list in the angli- 
cized form of John Johnson Langdyke, which 
helps to explain how some of the old Dutch 
names either disappeared or came down to us 
in a mutilated form. Samuoll Wilson appears 
as the owner of the first pretentious dwelling 
of which the street could boast, and in conse- 
quence paid the heaviest taxes for 1677.'^ 

The old wall again underwent considerable 
strengthening before terminating its usefulness 
as one of the defences of New York, and 
Governor Andros for a time in 1682 forced 
the early closing and morning opening of the 
gates as Colve had before him, Andros' pun- 
ishment for violations of the rules being how- 
ever only a fine of ten guilders. Some repairs 
were proposed in 1683, but five years later, 
when Governor Dongan ordered a survey 
made, from which it appeared that most of the 
palisades between the water gate and the ar- 
tillery mount (which had been constructed at 
what is now the corner of Wall and William 
Streets) were nearly all down ; the Water 
Gate itself — now called, according to the nar- 



street 
in 1674 



112 



XTbe JEarlp lF3lstor^ ot Mall Street 



tbc 

JSaetions 

1692 



rative of Chaplain John Miller, the '*fly block 
house " — was in a complete state of decay. 
The rest of the wall and the Broadway gate 
were in a similar state ; but, strange as it 
seems, the French war of 1692 led to a serious 
effort to reconstruct the defences." On April 
4th of that year, because of " the danger wee 
by in from the Enemy," the Common Council 
ordered that " each respective Inhabitant from 
fifteen years and upwards not listed in the 
trane bands, as also each servant and negroe 
upon notice from the Cap! of each respective 
Ward doe appear . . . and afford their 
labour with shovels, pickax, wheelbarrow 
and other needful instruments towards the re- 
pairing and mending the fortifications of this 
Citty."*' Two large stone bastions were 
built, one on the site of the artillery mount at 
William Street, and the other on Broadway.'" 
Although by the next year most of the wall 
was gone and the street laid out upon new 
lines by Governor Dongan, there was still a 
final tinkering at the defences, as all the free- 
men of the city were ordered to work upon 
the different fortifications on the 6th of July, 
169s. Probably those in Wall Street received 
but little of the ;£"soo expended for this pur- 
pose after being raised by a special tax." By 
1699 the end came, and that part of the wall 
not already levelled was removed at the re- 
quest of the citizens, expressed in a petition 



TLbc JEavl^ Ibtstor^ ot TOall Street 



113 



to the Common Council, which, in view of 
the fact that the fortifications were decayed 
and a new city hall was about to be built, 
prayed ** his Excellency that the said fortifica- 
tions be demolished and the stones of the 
bastions be appropriated to building said City 
Hall."'° Thereafter the street name, destined 
to become the most famous in all the great 
metropolis, alone served as a reminder of 
Stuyvesant's active desire to preserve for his 
employers the colony entrusted to him, until 
it became associated with an entirely new 
train of ideas. 

As early as 168=^ the northern side of Wall 
Street was carefully surveyed "by vartue of a 
Warrant from the honbie Coll Tho. Dungan 
Gouarnor Generall of his Majesties Coll of 
New Yorke " by Leo Beckwith, whose ability 
to spell does not seem to have corresponded 
to his skill as a surveyor. He ran his line 
from "ye Westernmost cornor of ye Bucthers 
Pen" at "an angle of 313°, or northwest by 
west nine degrees fifteen minutes " four hun- 
dred and twenty-three feet to the farthest 
corner of Smyth's Street (originally Smee's, 
now William Street) ; thence by an angle of 
}2}° four hundred and thirty-one feet to the 
farthest corner of the Gracht Street (Broad 
Street), and from here at an angle of 319° 
the line ran one hundred and fifty-one feet to 
the farthest corner of " Stoutenberg's garden, 



Xeo JBccfes 

witb's 

Survey 

1685 



114 



Zbc Bavlp t)t6tor\? ot Mall Street 



Governor 
S)ongan 's 
Example 

1686 



which is right Opposite to the South East 
Corner of ye New Street, the saide street 
being laide out thirty six foote, in bredth, Per- 
formed this 1 6 day of Decemb. 1685. Py 
Mee. Leo Beckwith, Dept. Surveior."" 

On the wall's being taken down, Governor 
Dongan considered that the one hundred feet 
of land left between the wall and the houses 
that there might be room for the movement 
of troops, was altogether too much space for 
a street to occupy and, cutting off at least forty 
feet within the ramparts, seems to have sold 
the land thus gained and applied the earnings 
to his own purposes." This action of his has 
forced and forces every day many thousands 
of people to walk in the street, because street 
and sidewalks are far too narrow to accom- 
modate the vast numbers which daily pass 
through, and he thereby set a bad example of 
misconduct to the succeeding city authorities, 
which has been followed down to the very la- 
test times. He was probably also instrumental 
in bringing about the first pavement laid in 
Wall Street in 1693, which, instead of extend- 
ing from one side to the other, covered a width 
of only ten feet in front of each row of houses 
from the gate at Broadway to Broad Street." 

From this time on Wall Street grew steadily, 
not only in the numbers of its inhabitants and 
their dwellings, but in their quality as well. 
In 1694 John Theobald and Peter Adolf built 



Xlbe Barl^ HDistor^ ot Mall Street 



a wharf on it near Pearl Street which facili- 
tated the approach to it by water,'* and while 
lots sold at about $30 in 1682, one on the 
southeast corner of Wall and Broad Streets 
brought $815 in 1700.'' 

But these are minor events compared with 
the already mentioned fact that the site chosen 
for the new City Hall was at the head of 
Broad Street on Wall, a piece of land ever 
since devoted to public buildings, for the 
presence of this structure made Wall Street 
the centre of city affairs and later drew to it, 
or near it, men whose names will ever be 
household words in America. Trinity Church 
also helped to improve the new street, for it 
had stood opposite to it on Broadway since 
1696, and from 1698 on contained an official 
pew in which the mayor, recorder, aldermen, 
and assistants of the city listened to an annual 
sermon preached for their benefit.'^'' 

The foundation of the new City Hall was 
laid on August 9, 1699, and by aid of the stones 
from the bastions, the sale of the old City Hall, 
and by appropriating the ferry revenues to it 
for seven years, as well as by appropriating 
sums outright, sufficient means were raised to 
construct what was for that time a notable 
building.'^ The estimated cost was ^3000, 
but it finally called for the expenditure of 
;!{^40oo before being finished, and as the 
Governor, Earl of Bellomont, had greatly en- 



CitB Iball 
3&egun 
1699 



ii6 



Ube Barl^ IfDistor^ ot Mall Street 



©ovcrnor 

JScllOs 

mont's 
arms 
1701 



couraged the undertaking, the architect, James 
Evetts, was ordered to build into the wall the 
arms of Bellomont and of his Lieutenant 
Governor, Captain Naufon." But such is the 
mutability of men's minds, that we find it re- 
corded but two years later that the Marshal 
was ordered to forthwith pull the arms down 
and break them, Bellomont having fallen into 
disfavor with the good citizens." 

The first floor of the new building was half 
taken up by a large corridor which ran through 
from front to rear, the entrance being by means 
of a flight of steps. In one room, after a time, 
was kept the city fire engine and there was a 
dungeon in the rear for all prisoners except 
debtors, who had special quarters in the garret, 
there being no separate prison in New York 
until 1759. On the second floor were the 
court-room, the jury-room and the Common 
Council room, with which arrangement of 
rooms the building stood down to 1763, ex- 
cept for the removal of the prisoners.'" On the 
opposite side of and in the street stood the 
cage, pillory, stocks, and whipping-post so 
characteristic of this period, and, to make the 
street more impressive, it was repaved in 1701, 
and from Broadway to Smith Street in 1704." 

Governor Dongan in the course of his land 
scheme had sold the frontage on the northerly 
side of the street to Messrs. De Peyster and 
Bayard, who in turn disposed of a lot at the 



Ube JEarl^ Ibistor^ of Mall Street 



117 



corner of William and Wall Streets in 1701 to 
Gabriel Thompson, an innkeeper, for the sum 
of ;^i20/' About 1713 they decided that they 
were entitled to the land upon which stood 
the City Hall, and brought a suit of ejectment 
against the Corporation which seems to have 
been successfully defended by the Recorder.'' 
In 1 7 18 these same men sold to the trustees of 
the First Presbyterian Church, whose congre- 
gation had for some time been worshipping 
in the City Hall, a lot west of the City Hall, 
with a frontage of 88 feet and a depth of 124, 
upon which the first church building was 
erected in 17 19. This church, enlarged in 
1748, was rebuilt in 18 10 and later removed 
brick by brick to Jersey City, where it now 
stands. It was therefore long one of the land- 
marks and sights of the fast growing city 
together with its older rival Trinity, then still 
the small, square building with a very tall 
spire, in which Rev. William Vesey had 
preached the first sermon on the 6th of Febru- 
ary, 1697. 

Close to the City Hall the Bayards erected 
in 1729 a large building in which they intro- 
duced into New York what they termed " the 
mystery of sugar refining," which structure 
marked their close connection with early 
Wall Street for the rest of the century, and 
which was turned into a tobacco factory in 



Ube 

3Ba\>ar^s 

in Wlall 

Street 

1701 



ii8 



'LiK JEarl^ Ibtstor^ ot Mall Street 



1726 



But even before the Bayards thus set their 
stamp upon the street, a building had been 
erected in 1709 which made the street the 
centre of a good deal of trade and of a peculiar 
kind of traffic one does not expect to find in 
New York. On the 4th of October of that year 
the inhabitants of the East Ward received per- 
mission to erect a market house at the east end 
of Wall Street at their own charge. They built 
it near the site of the old tavern much patron- 
ized by Long Islanders on their trips to New 
York and which was founded by Daniel Lit- 
schoe. After his death in 1660 it was carried 
on by his wife, who late in life sold it to a 
Jewish butcher, Asser Levy, who in turn 
used it for the purposes of his business." 
By 1720, repairs of such a serious nature 
were required, that it was decided to move 
the market higher up into the street, and six 
years later it was ordered that the Wall Street 
market be the public market place for the sale 
of all sorts of corn, grain, and meal, which 
should thereafter be sold in no other market 
in the city.'' This action gave it the name of 
the ''Meal Market," by which it was com- 
monly known, and cut meat was not permit- 
ted to be on sale there until 1740, when Isaac 
Varian and Charies Denison leased the first 
two regular butcher stands. At the same 
time arrangements were made for storing in 
the market the unsold meal and grain which 



Zbc Barl^ IfDistor^ ot Mall Street 



119 



had hitherto been kept over night in neighbor- 
ing stores. One of these was that of John 
Briggs, who advertised in Bradford's Gaiette 
that in his shop at the corner of the Meal Mar- 
ket all sorts of drugs and medicines could be 
bought at wholesale." 

It was in 1731 that this market received its 
unusual feature by an ordinance of November 
1 8th, which said that ''All negroes and Indian 
slaves that are let out to hire within this city 
do take up their standing, in order to be hired 
in the Market house at the Wall Street Slip, 
until such time as they are hired, whereby all 
persons may know where to hire slaves as 
their occasion shall require and all Masters dis- 
cover where their slaves are so hired." But 
slaves were bought and sold as well as hired 
there, and that the law had no compassion for 
these poor ignorant bondmen can be seen 
all too clearly from the punishment of one 
transgressor. 

Mr. Jacob Rignier's man Mars, having been 
convicted of wounding Ephraim Pierson, a 
constable of the watch, it was ordered that he 
"be stripped from the middle upwards and 
tyed to the tail of a cart, at the City Hall, and 
be drawn from thence to Broadway and from 
thence to the Custom House, thence to Wall 
Street and from thence to the City Hall again ; 
and that he be whipped upon the naked back, 
ten lashes at the corner of every street he shall 



©rMnance 
of 1731 



I20 



Ubc JEarlp Ibtstor^ ot Mall Street 



Ubc /lOcal 

^arftet 

t762 



pass and that he afterwards be discharged 
from his imprisonment, paying his fees, etc." 
It will hardly be maintained that the sight of 
this bleeding wretch could have been a profit- 
able one, either to the city fothers on their 
way to the City Hall, or to the school boys, 
who doubtless followed the cart with jeers 
and jokes, unless fortunately in school during 
the period of punishment/^ 

From 1750 onward the business of the 
Market began to fail and the building to 
decay, if we may judge by the increased bills 
for repairs, which figure largely in the records 
from 1 720 down, /^4^, 5^. being expended for 
that purpose in 1760." It is not surprising, 
therefore, that the city government ordered 
its removal in May, 1762, after having received 
a strong petition from various people residing 
nearby, who said that "they conceive the 
building called the Meal Market is of no real 
use or advantage, either to the community in 
general or with the inhabitants living near 
thereto. . . . That the said building greatly 
obstructs the agreeable prospect of the East 
River, which those that live in Wall Street 
would otherwise enjoy, occasioning a dirty 
street, offensive to the inhabitants on each 
side, and disagreeable to those who pass and 
repass to and from the Coffee House, a place 
of great resort." The alderman and "com- 
mon councillman " of the ward supervised 



Ube Barl^ tbistor^ of Mall Street 121 



the removal and had the few butchers' stands mail 
still in use transferred to the Oswego, or Broad- ®^^^f 
way, Market." 

By the time the slave market was estab- 
lished, Wall Street showed signs of consider- 
able growth and of development along those 
lines which made it before the end of the cen- 
tury the leading street of the city socially and 
politically, if not commercially. The south 
side of the street grew naturally more rapidly 
than did the north side, upon which there 
stood in 1728, between Broadway and Will- 
iam Streets, only the Sugar House, City Hall, 
and Presbyterian Church. But beyond Will- 
iam Street there were numerous smaller 
buildings, so that the east end had a built- 
up aspect on both sides of the street. From 
the City Hall to Broadway the street had at 
that time a width of forty-one feet. The 
presence of the Meal Market and the Long 
Island ferry, which had existed from an early 
day, gave a commercial aspect to the lower 
part of the street which it has never lost, 
while the two churches and the City Hall 
drew to the upper end more and more people 
of means, so that even before Revolutionary 
times it was the most fashionable residence 
street, a growth best indicated by the increase 
in value of the land. In 1706 a lot 25 by 166 
feet on the north side cost $580 ; a lot on the 
south side, 42 by 108 feet, with the modest 



122 XTbe ]Earlp ibtstor^ ot Mall Street 



Sale of house which stood upon it, brought in 1793 
fiQs $12,000. This was the property of Alexander 
Hamilton, and a similar house with a lot only 
44 by 51 feet of land, sold for $12,550 a year 
later. 

The City Hall in those days attracted to it- 
self some of the ablest citizens, and was the 
scene of so many interesting and exciting 
events that its history is also that of the city 
and state, and later on of the new nation itself. 
Immediately after the death of Lord Bellomont, 
the Mayor, Thomas Noell, refused to sit with 
some newly-elected aldermen, on the ground 
that they should have been sworn in by him 
and not by the retiring Mayor, so that excite- 
ment ran high until the Supreme Court ad- 
justed the matter.** It was also the scene in 
1735 of the famous trial of the editor Zenger. 
Brought on by free criticism of the officers of 
the city, it soon became a question as to the 
liberty of the press, and so intense was the 
popular excitement that the court-room was 
crowded and hundreds awaited the verdict in 
the street. When the news was brought out 
that Andrew Hamilton, the learned lawyer of 
Philadelphia and friend of Franklin, had ob- 
tained a verdict of " not guilty " for the pris- 
oner, on all the charges of false, scandalous, 
malicious, and seditious libel, extraordinary 
demonstrations resulted. The entire populace 
seemed to be in the celebration and paid Mr. 



Zbc lEarlp Ibtstor^ ot Mall Street 



23 



Hamilton such honors that the freedom of the 
city was given him, and the Mayor felt him- 
self moved to bestow a gold snuff-box upon 
the eloquent Philadelphian." 

Naturally the men of those times took a 
pride in a building about which the entire 
city life revolved, and in 171 5 Stephen De 
Lancey, a member of the Assembly — which 
also sat there* — showed his appreciation of 
and love for the building by purchasing, with 
the ;^50 check he had received for his service 
as assemblyman, a cupola for it. This cupola 
contained a clock, with four large dials, and 
it was exactly rebuilt in January, 1738, when it 
was discovered to be entirely decayed." 

The city records contain many items of in- 
terest, from year to year, about the changes 
and repairs to this historic building, such as the 
fitting up of one room for another " strong and 
useful prison " in 1727, and of another room in 
1732 for the use of the speaker and committees 
of the Assembly, while the fire engines re- 
ceived theirs in 1731. The Assembly chamber 
was ''ornamentally repaired" in 1758, the 
prisoners all removed in 1759, and the City 
Hall entirely repaired and somewhat altered 
in 1763. To cover the expenses of this un- 
dertaking, these three sums were raised by a 



Stephen 
SJeXanceie 



* ThB State Assembly met in New York until 1 797 ; in 
the City Hall until the Revolution. 



124 



Ube Barl^ Ibistor^ of Mall Street 



Kiev, 3obn 

ton's Oif t 
1730 



lottery on April 12th of that year : £%8, 145. 

8^^-; ;^490> M^., 4^^.; £^2}9> 1^', and thus 
encouraged, a committee was appointed to 
write to Bristol, England, for copper with 
which to cover the roof. Later it was deter- 
mined to " raise the building a story higher," 
which resulted in the city's borrowing the sum 
of ^500 as an addition to the lottery moneys, 
and in 1764 the grim whipping-post, stocks, 
cage, and pillory were at last removed from 
Wall Street and moved to the new gaol." 

Still another fact which must not be over- 
looked, now that New York is to build a 
splendid and united library, is that the first 
library in the city was housed in this old City 
Hall in a room directly opposite that of the 
Common Council. There were 1642 volumes, 
the bequest of the Rev. John Millington of 
Nev/ington, England, to the Venerable Society 
for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts, 
which did so much for religion in the early 
colonies, and which sent this gift at once to 
New York. **We are truly sensible," said 
the Common Council, '*of the great advan- 
tages which may arise from so generous and 
seasonable a present and we are zealously 
disposed to receive the same." Before the 
arrival of the books in 1730, the Common 
Council proclaimed their decision that "the 
Clergy and Gentlemen of this Government and 
Jersey, Pensilvania and Connecticut might 



Ubc iBavl^ Ibistor^ ot mall Street 



125 



borrow Books to read upon giving security to 
Return them within a Limited Time. . . ." 
To these books Rev. John Sharp added his 
own collection (he had been chaplain to Lord 
Bellomont), and opened the library to the pub- 
lic as the ''Corporation Library." 

The interest in the library seems to have 
died out shortly after and did not revive until 
1754, when some public-spirited citizens, who 
had founded the ''Society Library," got per- 
mission to deposit theirs also in the City Hall. 
When the latter was rebuilt, provision was 
made for a new library room, "to be finished 
in as cheap a manner as possible," and as soon 
as it was ready Mr. Thomas Jackson was ap- 
pointed librarian on August 2}, 1765, and or- 
dered to be in the room "on Mondays and 
Thursdays from one half after Eleven o'Clock 
in the Morning until one to let out the Books." 
A Folio cost "two shillings, a Quarto one 
shilling and an Octavo or Lesser Volume Six- 
pence, per month." Mr. Jackson was required 
to keep a strict account of the income there- 
from and to catalogue the Library, for all of 
which he received the magnificent salary of 
twenty dollars per annum ! In 1772 King 
George 111. granted it a charter under the name 
of the New York Society Library, and after 
having been thoroughly vandalized by British 
soldiers in the Revolution and probably by the 
patriots also, finally became the Mercantile 



IRcv, 3obn 

Sbarp 's 

©(ft 

1730 



126 



Ube lEarl^ Ibistorp of Mall Street 



Pitt 's 
Statue 
JErccte^ 

1770 



Library." Judge Jones states that he himself 
saw many valuable books sold by soldiers for 
drink." 

Wall Street received its first ornamentation 
when the white marble pedestrian statue of 
William Pitt was erected on September 7, 
1770, near the intersection of Wall and Will- 
iam Streets and in front of the residences of 
John Thurman and Evert Bancker. The work 
of the then celebrated artist Wilton, of Lon- 
don, the statue represented Pitt in a Roman 
habit in the attitude of an orator, holding a 
scroll in his right hand, the left being extended. 
It was voted at a town meeting held June 2}, 
1766, as a token of the gratitude of the colony 
of New York for Pitt's eminent services to 
America, particularly for his aiding the repeal 
of the Stamp Act, the news of which had just 
reached the city. In the midst of the angry 
passions aroused by the Revolution, the statue 
was too conspicuous a mark to go unscathed, 
and so suffered the indignity of having its 
head cut off. It stood in this condition for 
some years and was then removed by city or- 
dinance as an obstruction to the city. Part of 
it is still to be seen in the rooms of the New 
York Historical Society." 

During the series of events which led to the 
actual outbreak of the Revolutionary War, 
Wall Street was always the centre of the 
popular outbursts of feeling or passion, and re- 



Ube lEarlp Ibtstor^ ot Mall Street 127 



mained as such and as the abiding place of the Zca 
military authorities until the restoration of ^^^773^ 
peace and a civilian government. From 1765 
on the trouble began, one of its most dramatic 
events being a great tea meeting in the City 
Hall in 1773, when General Lamb read the Act 
of Parliament placing a duty on tea and re- 
ceived an overwhelming vote of No, when he 
asked whether it should be paid. Another 
event was the appearance in Wall Street of 
one hundred and fifty armed men, who 
marched into Trinity Church in a vain attempt 
to make the rector, Rev. Charles Inglis, forego 
his prayers for the king and the royal family, 
a f^ict which shows how rife the revolutionary 
spirit was and how ready the citizens were to 
receive with cheers the reading in Wall Street, 
on July 18, 1776, of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence." 

The citizens paid dearly, however, for these 
demonstrations, and for the privilege of hav- 
ing for a short time Washington's headquar- 
ters and the presence of the Provincial Com- 
mittee, which sat in the City Hall, undisturbed 
by renewed rail-riding of loyalists through the 
adjoining streets, of which acts it disapproved 
by a weak resolution passed June 17, 1776." 

The long years of English occupation told 
heavily upon the city, and Wall Street echoed 
and re-echoed to the tramp of the occupying 
army, and soon began to show signs of the 



128 



XTbe Barlp t)istorp ot Mall Street 



xian 

Cburcb 

IReopcucb 

1785 



sufifering ever attendant upon an appeal to 
arms. The great fire which destroyed four 
hundred and ninety-two houses, about one- 
eighth of the city, September 21, 1776, merci- 
fully deprived Wall Street of Trinity Church 
alone — a severe loss in itself, however. The 
Presbyterian Church, in which Whitefield had 
spoken with that stirring eloquence which 
moved all who heard to tears, became a hos- 
pital and harbored the wounded and their un- 
skilled nurses and surgeons throughout the 
war, not being re-opened for religious pur- 
poses until 1785.'° 

As for the City Hall, it became the main 
guard-house and military headquarters of 
the Americans and British. The latter's sol- 
diers roamed through it at will and paid no 
more respect to its fittings and dignity than 
they did to its library, which is what must be 
expected of every invading army. General 
Knyphausen was one of the English officers 
who lived in a large house on Wall Street, 
and Benedict Arnold is also said to have lived 
in a house on the street after his flight to the 
British. Many of the younger officers boarded 
in or near it, beguiling their days of inactiv- 
ity by paying attentions to the young Ameri- 
can loyalists of the opposite sex, who still 
remained in the city. Doubtless there were 
many gay sleighing parties and entertain- 
ments even in that bitter cold winter of 1779- 



XTbe 3£arl^ Ibtstor^ ot Mall Street 



129 



80, when the snow was so deep and fuel so 
scarce, that the beautiful trees, which added 
so much to the attractiveness of Wall Street, 
were, one by one, felled to furnish the kindling 
so greatly needed.'' 

So the street looked very shabby and bat- 
tered when the end came and General Henry 
Knox entered New York at the head of the 
American army, marching through the Bowery 
to Wall Street, and then going back to the 
Bowery to receive his commander, George 
Washington, to whom he was always so de- 
voted, as soon as the English troops and loy- 
alists had withdrawn. In the evening of the 
same day, Washington and his general offi- 
cers were given a public dinner at the tavern 
on the corner of Wall and Nassau Streets, 
then the most fashionable one in the city, of 
which John Simmons, a man of immense size, 
was the proprietor. After the dinner the 
French officers with Washington superin- 
tended a display of fireworks in Bowling 
Green, as their part of the celebration over 
New York's release from the incubus of an 
English garrison." 

The city at once began to recover rapidly, 
trade commenced again, those who had fled 
from the city because of the presence of the 
English returned, and the blessings of peace 
made' themselves felt on every hand. The 
next year saw the establishment of the First 



En& of 
TOlar 
1782 



I30 



Hbe JEarl^ Ibistor^ of Mall Street 



Ube 

IRcvfvcs 
1786 



Bank of New York," the leading men of the 
nation came to the city, and in 1786 a direc- 
tory of the city was published, which gives 
us a clear insight into the flourishing Wall Street 
of that period. From this first city directory 
we learn that, according to their business or 
trades, the street contained one apothecary, 
three auctioneers, one grocer, six merchants, 
two tailors, one clockmaker, one printer and 
bookseller, one snuff and tobacco manufac- 
turer, one owner of a vendue and commission 
store, one tavern-keeper, one owner of a 
''porter house," one milliner, one school- 
teacher, one upholsterer, one owner of an in- 
telligence office, one quartermaster-general 
(William Denning), and six residents who 
have no occupation set after their names. We 
also find in Mr. Kelby's compilation of the 
newspapers of that year a number of interest- 
ing items. 

Francis Childs announces on February 27th 
that he ** has removed his printing-office from 
189 Water Street to the corner of Wall and 
Water Streets, opposite the Coffee House 
bridge, where the Daily Advertiser will be 
published as usual." 

On April 1 5th the greater part of the pro- 
prietors of Wall, as well as of Green and 
Water Streets, requested the Corporation to 
order all sea-going vessels out of Wall Street 
Slip, except the coasters and wood boats, thus 



Ube 3£arl^ Ibtstor^ ot Mall Street 



131 



giving them back privileges of which they 
had been deprived for twenty years. 

On May 28th, Richard Varick, Recorder of 
the city, and for many years connected with 
the city government, moved into 52 Wall 
Street, a house previously occupied by Colo- 
nel W. S. Livingston, while a week later Ed- 
ward Fogarty announced that the hours of 
attendance at his school, 46 Wall Street, were 
from 9 to 12 A.M. and 2 until 5 p.m. each day. 

That the contents of the street were a 
temptation to wrong-doers even at this time, 
we learn from the fact that on June 19th there 
was an ''attempted robbery of Montgomery, 
the watch-maker in Wall Street. The villains 
got only five or six lead watches that hung in 
the window by way of ornament. Mr. Mont- 
gomery offers a reward of twenty dollars for 
the arrest of the villains." Doubtless the 
thieves would have secured a greater booty 
had they tried the store at 116 Wall Street, 
where Nicolas Low offered for sale looking- 
glasses from London, Carolina indigo, glass- 
ware, French brandy, rums, and best James 
River tobacco. The lower end of Wall Street 
was in this year again greatly in need of re- 
pairs, a state of affairs which crops up regu- 
larly in the records from 1700 down. This 
time the auctioneers, who lived there, are 
particularly urged to subscribe to the list 
started at the Coffee House. 



street 
1786 



132 Ubc 3£avl^ Ibistov^ ot Mall Street 



coflee This Coffee House, like the tavern at the 

^yg^ corner of Nassau Street, was a much fre- 
quented place, being the rendezvous of the 
merchants and therefore also a political head- 
quarters. It stood on the corner of Wall and 
Water Streets, and when the new "Tontine 
Coffee House" was built in the years 1792-94, 
it lost ground and was known as the Old 
Coffee House. Its tontine rival was built by 
an association of merchants and cost $43,000. 
William Duer, for many years President of 
Columbia College, in describing the fashion- 
able end of Wall Street as it was about this 
time, says that a large three-story double 
house of brick, which stood on the northwest 
corner of Broadway, was the family mansion 
of the Marstons, but was at this time occupied 
by Mynheer Van Berckle, Minister from the 
States-General of Holland. Opposite to it 
lived William Edgar, and next to him lived 
Colonel William Lamb, Collector of the Port 
of New York under the State government, 
and a veteran of the Revolutionary struggle. 
On the same side lived people with the famil- 
iar names of the Cuylers, Dennings, Smiths, 
and Stebbins. On the northerly side were 
the Whites, Goulds, Buchanans, and Van 
Homes, as well as Mrs. Daubigny, who kept 
a very fashionable bachelor lodging house, 
and "the more notorious bachelor homestead 
of Daniel McCormick, upon whose stoop 



ZTbe Barlp Ibtstor^ ot Mall Street 



^33 



were seated for several hours every fair day, 
himself, his cronies, and his toadies, the latter 
of whom generally stayed to dinner." " 

This was truly the flourishing time of Wall 
Street, the beginning of its most fashionable 
period, when its sidewalks resounded to the 
steps not only of the leaders of fashion, but 
of the leaders of the government of the United 
States. Washington and his cabinet, the for- 
eign ambassadors, the first Congress under 
the new Constitution, and all the leading law- 
yers of the day, such men as John Jay, Duane, 
and Livingston, came to swell the throng of 
well - dressed and distinguished men and 
women, in whose daily walk Wall Street 
was ever included, making a gathering of 
high-minded, able patriots, whose fame in- 
creases as we become further removed from 
their day. 

How to receive and house the new govern- 
ment properly became the question of the 
hour in 1788, until the Common Council re- 
solved, on September 17th, to appropriate the 
whole of the City Hall to the use of the Fed- 
eral Government, and the work of completely 
altering it was begun in the next month. 
The city wisely employed Major L'Enfant, the 
French engineer to whom we owe the lay- 
ing out of the city of Washington. At a cost 
of $65,000, the building, which had previously 
been raised upon arches, under which passed 



TXHall 

Street's 

prosperity 

1788 



134 



Ube Barlp Ibistor^ ot Mall Street 



IReprcs 

sentattve 

dbamber 

1788 



the pedestrians on Wall and Nassau Streets, 
upon whose lines it encroached, was com- 
pletely remodelled and enlarged. Some new 
walls were built, and the interior was decor- 
ated and fitted up with an elegance unequalled 
in the new republic. The Representative 
chamber had an arched ceiling 46 feet in 
height in the centre, and had an octangular 
shape. Its other dimensions were 62 and 58 
feet, and it contained two galleries, a Speak- 
er's platform, quaint fire-places under each 
window, and a separate chair and desk for 
each representative. 

The ceiling of the Senate chamber, natu- 
rally a smaller room, was painted a light blue, 
and decorated in the centre with a sun and 
thirteen stars. The Senators sat in semi- 
circles, and the Vice-President's chair, ele- 
vated three feet above the floor, was under a 
crimson damask canopy. On the Wall Street 
side were the three windows and the famous 
balcony, twelve feet deep, upon which took 
place the swearing in of the first President of 
the United States." 

It is sad to have to relate that in 1801, 
when Major L'Enfant's pecuniary condition 
was such that he felt compelled to ask the 
city to reimburse him for these services, 
which he had intended to be gratuitous, the 
Corporation of the city awarded him but $750, 
which he declined. In 1789, when the build- 



Zbc Barl^ Ibtstorp ot Mall Street 



135 



ing was finished, Major L'Enfant was offered 
ten acres of land near Provost's Street, a pe- 
cuniary compensation, the thanks of the cor- 
poration, and the freedom of the city, accept- 
ing only the last two rewards." 

In 1789 came the inauguration of President 
Washington, and an ending of the trouble- 
some times passed under the government 
provided by the Articles of Confederation. 
Escorted by the leading functionaries of the 
latter government, Washington crossed from 
Elizabethtown to the foot of Wall Street in 
the great rowboat steered by Commodore 
Nicholson, and manned by thirteen shipmas- 
ters or pilots, General Knox, John Jay, and 
many others being in the accompanying 
boats. Welcomed at the foot of Wall Street 
by Chancellor Livingston, Richard Varick, the 
recorder of New York, the Mayor, Aldermen, 
and other officials, Washington proceeded, 
amid the firing of cannon, to the residence of 
Governor Clinton in Queen Street, escorted 
by the militia, the Cincinnati and other socie- 
ties, and everywhere enthusiastically greeted 
by the dense masses of people who crowded 
the wharves and every available inch of the 
streets through which the hero passed. 

At sunrise of the next morning, the 30th 
of April, a salute was fired from the Battery, 
and in the services which were held in all 
the churches, the various congregations im- 



TRIlasbings 

ton's 

arrival 

1789 



136 



XTbe lEarlp Ibtstor^ of Mall Street 



TKnaebinga 

ton's 
Unauaurs 

ation 

1789 



plore.d "the blessings of heaven upon their 
new government, its favor and protection to 
the President, and success and acceptance to 
this administration." " 

Congress assembled at noon in the City 
Hall, now called Federal Hall, the procession 
formed in Wall Street and went to Washing- 
ton's house, 3 Cherry Street, to which he had 
gone from Clinton's during the previous even- 
ing, and where he found Mrs. Washington 
attended by many ladies. On its return, the 
procession, with Washington between the 
committee of the Senate and the committee 
of Representatives, passed through Oueen and 
Great Dock (Pearl) Streets into Broad and up 
the latter to Wall Street, the latter being par- 
ticularly well decorated." 

When Washington, attended by Livingston 
and the Senators' and Representatives' com- 
mittee, appeared upon the balcony in full 
view of the dense throngs in Wall and Broad 
Streets, as well as in every window and on 
every roof from which a view of the proceed- 
ings could be obtained, his entrance was 
greeted with universal shouts of joy and wel- 
come. According to Mrs. Josiah Quincy, an 
eye-witness, "his appearance was most sol- 
emn and dignified. Advancing to the front of 
the balcony, he laid his hand upon his heart, 
bowed several times, and then retired to an 
arm-chair near the table. The populace seemed 



Ube Barlp Iblstot^ ot Mall Street 



to understand that the scene had overcome 
him and were at once hushed in profound 
silence. 

''After a few moments Washington arose 
and came forward. Chancellor Livingston read 
the oath of office according to the form pre- 
scribed by the Constitution, and Washington 
repeated it, resting his hand upon the Bible. 
Mr. Otis, the Secretary of the Senate, then 
took the Bible to raise it to the lips of Wash- 
ington, who stooped and kissed the book. 
At this moment a signal was given, by raising 
a flag upon the cupola of the Hall, for a gen- 
eral discharge of the artillery of the Battery. 
All the bells in the city rang out a peal of joy, 
and the assembled multitude sent forth a uni- 
versal shout."" ''Such thundering peals," 
says another eye-witness, "went up from 
the crowds as seemed to shake the founda- 
tions of the city, and long and loud were they 
repeated, as if their echoes were never to 
cease."" 

Such was Wall Street's most historic event 
and the beginning of its short but brilliant 
period as the seat of the government of the 
nation. 

If it is to-day no longer the haunt of states- 
men, or the lounging-place of fashion, its fame 
has in no wise decreased, for it contains now 
the commercial leaders of the republic as it did 
the political leaders one hundred years ago. 



137 



TIClasbings 
ton 
Uaites 
tbe 
®atb 
1789 



138 Ubc Earli^ Ibistori^ ot Mall Street 



TRaaii If there is much in its life to-day which calls 
®g*""^ for the deepest censure and regret, it is still 
the pulse which records the heart-beats of the 
nation, and still the wall, the bulwark, to 
which the people look for the means of de- 
fence of the city, the state, and the nation in 
times of financial danger and national peril. 



Zbc Barl^ Ibistorp ot Mall Street 



139 



REFERENCES. 

1. Bayard Tuckerman's Stuyvesant, p. 51. 

2. Records of the Burgomasters and Schepens (transla- 

tion), i., p. 150. 

3. Ibid., i., pp. 153-4. 

4. D. T. Valentine, Manual of the Common Council, 

P- 537- 

5. Records, \., pp. 216, 229. 

6. /&z^., i., pp. 418,427. 

7. /&i^., ii,, p. 211. 

8. Ihid.^ ii., pp. 215-16. 

9. /^iW., ii., pp. 551-56. 

10. English Records of the Common Council, ii., p. }^. 

1 1. Valentine, p. 541. 

12. Ihid., p. 537. 

13. English Records, ii., p. 23 (5th October, 1654). 

14. Valentine, p. 538. W. L. Stone, History of New 

York City, pp. 6-J-68. 

15. English Records, i., p. 99 ; Valentine, p. 324. 

16. English Records, i., pp. 17, 211. 

17. J bid., ii., p. 44. 

18. Valentine, p. 542. 

19. English Records, ii., pp. 182, 228. 

20. Valentine, p. 546, 

21. Documentary History of New York, iii., p. 244. 

22. Valentine, pp. 541-42. 

23. Martha J. Lamb, Story oflVall Street, p. 23 ; English 

Records, ii., p. 98. 

24. Ibid., ii., p. 357. 

25. Tuckerman, p. 149. 

26. English Records, Ibid., ii., p. 298. 

27. Ibid., ii., p. 357. 

28. English Records, ii., pp. 363-4, 422. 

29. Ibid., ii., p. 516, Dec. ist, 1702. 

30. Valentine, p. 551. 

51. English Records, ii., p. 358; Valentine, p. 551 ; 
T^ecords, ii., p. 431. 



I40 XTbe Barl^ l&istorp of Mall Street 



32. Valentine, p. 56. 

^^. English Records, iii., pp. 269, 272. 

34. John A. Stevens, The Progress of New York, ii., p. 27. 

35. Thomas F. De Voe, The Market Book, p. 242. 
^6. English %ecords, ii., p. 508 ; Stevens, ii., p. 27. 

37. De Voe, pp. 242, 247 ; English Records, v., p. 33. 

38. De Voe, p. 244 ; English Records, iv., p. 237. 

39. De Voe, p. 251. 

40. English Records, vi., p. 159 ; De Voe, pp. 251-52. 

41. Lamb, p. 26. 

42. Ibid., p. 29. 

43. Ihid., p. 30. 

44. English Records, iv., pp. 121, 261, 284, 476; vi., 

pp. 12, 6}, 190, 193-94, 197, 219, and 224. 

45. English %ecords, iv., pp. 175-76, 192, 19^ ; vi., pp. 

270, 278 ; Mary L. Booth, History of the City of 
New York, pp. 319-20. 

46. Thomas Jones, New York in the T{evolution, p. 1 36. 

47. English %ecords, vii., p. 44; Stevens, pp. 13-15; 

W. A, Duer, T^eminiscences of an Old Yorker, p. 
4 ; J. F. Watson, New York City and State in 
the Olden Time, p. 202. 

48. Lamb, p. ^Sff". 

49. Jones, i., p. 101. 

50. A. T. Goodrich, The Picture of New York and 

Stranger's Guide, p. 364 ; Thomas E. V. Smith, 
The City of New York in the Year of IVashing- 
ton's Inauguratian, p. 148. 

51. Booth, p. 51 1 ; Lamb, p. 44. 

52. Goodrich, pp. 67-68; Smith, p. 121. 

53. Stevens, ii., p. 40. 

54. Duer, p. 5. 

55. Lamb, p. 57. 

56. Duer, p. 67 ; Smith, pp. 217, 219. 

57. Gazette of the United States, May 2, 1789. 

58. Duer, pp. 67, 69. 

59. Smith, pp. 231-32. 

60. Duer, p. 68. 



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